“Meng, one of the vice chairs on the company’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities and a court hearing has been set for Friday, a Canadian Justice Department spokesman said. Trump and [Chinese President] Xi had dined in Buenos Aires on Dec. 1 at the G20 summit.”

From the Left

The left questions the timing of the arrest and worries that it will make it harder to resolve the ongoing trade dispute with China.

From the Right

The right supports the arrest in response to China’s bad behavior.

“Meng is the daughter of the founder of Huawei, a national champion at the forefront of Xi’s efforts for China to be self-sufficient in strategic technologies. While the U.S. routinely asks allies to extradite drug lords, arms dealers and other criminals, arresting a major Chinese executive like this is rare — if not unprecedented... China is almost certain to view Meng’s arrest as a major escalation in the trade war that will foment fears of a wider Cold War between the world’s biggest economies.”

“What do we want out of this?... Before Huawei, smaller Chinese telecom-equipment maker ZTE Corp. was caught breaching U.S. sanctions... [The] ham-fisted approach to punishing, forgiving, and then re-punishing ZTE must not be repeated if the U.S. wants to be taken seriously… [instead of fining Huawei] the U.S. should move forward with plans to set up stricter protocols on what it will allow China to buy...

“In addition, to be truly effective, such regulations need the support of allies. And that will require Trump to spend more time being friendly to the U.S.’s friends and less time being friendly to its enemies. It would also require the U.S. to recognize that not every problem can be solved with a sledgehammer.”

“The long-term solution is to decouple our economy from certain Chinese industries such as telecom and digital infrastructure. The U.S.-China economic confrontation is going to get worse before it gets better — something the markets are beginning to realize. Critics will paint this coming escalation as anti-business or anti-China, but it’s actually about defending America.”

“The U.S. government is sending a clear signal to Beijing that it will no longer tolerate China's global economic misconduct... Huawei would lack their economic power without the support of China's industrial-scale intellectual property theft… [and] Huawei serves Xi's economic strategy of market domination and competitor displacement, and operates as a front for espionage.”

Washington Examiner

“Just as talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping signaled a cooling of a trade war between the US and China, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in a Vancouver airport might signal a new round of hardball...

“[Another aspect to consider] is the message sent to European executives who might be thinking that EU resistance to US sanctions on Iran is a good business strategy. If the US will arrest the number two person in the most high-profile Chinese corporation on sanctions violations, then that Volkswagen executive is going to have second thoughts about doing business with Iran.”